'That busy
brain,' they thought, 'is never at rest. Even while he is talking to
us some abstruse point in the classics is occupying his mind.'
What was occupying his mind at the present moment was the thoroughly
unsatisfactory conduct of his wife's brother, Bertie Baxter. The more
tensely he brooded over the salient points in the life-history of his
wife's brother, Bertie Baxter, the deeper did the iron become embedded
in his soul. Bertie was one of Nature's touchers. This is the age of
the specialist, Bertie's speciality was borrowing money. He was a man
of almost eerie versatility in this direction. Time could not wither
nor custom stale his infinite variety. He could borrow with a breezy
bluffness which made the thing practically a hold-up. And anon, when
his victim had steeled himself against this method, he could extract
another five-pound note from his little hoard with the delicacy of one
playing spillikins. Mr Blatherwick had been a gold-mine to him for
years. As a rule, the proprietor of Harrow House unbelted without
complaint, for Bertie, as every good borrower should, had that knack of
making his victim feel during the actual moment of paying over, as if
he had just made a rather good investment. But released from the spell
of his brother-in-law's personal magnetism, Mr Blatherwick was apt to
brood.
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